The next in the never ending series of Locky downloaders is an email with the subject of\u00a0 Purchase Order No. 90373 ( random numbers) \u00a0coming or pretending to come donotreply@south-staffordshire.com with a semi-random named zip attachment that matches the subject line<\/p>\n
They\u00a0use email addresses and subjects that will entice a user to read the email and open the attachment. A very high proportion are being targeted at small and medium size businesses, with the hope of getting a better response than they do from consumers.<\/p>\n
28\u00a0November \u00a02016 :\u00a0\u00a0payment_history_64b96be.zip : Extracts to: 93410605.wsf\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Current Virus total detections<\/u><\/a>:\u00a0\u00a0MALWR<\/u>\u00a0 not giving any payload or download sites.\u00a0\u00a0Payload Security<\/a> shows a download of\u00a0\u00a0an encrypted file from which is converted by the script to a dll and autorun. Unfortunately Payload Security does not show or make the dll available for download in the free web version<\/p>\n south-staffordshire.com\u00a0has not been hacked or had their email or other servers compromised. They are not sending the emails to you. They are just innocent victims in exactly the same way as every recipient of these emails.<\/p>\n They\u00a0use email addresses and subjects that will entice a user to read the email and open the attachment. A very high proportion are being targeted at small and medium size businesses, with the hope of getting a better response than they do from consumers.<\/p>\n One of the \u00a0emails looks like:<\/p>\n From<\/strong>: donotreply@south-staffordshire.com<\/p>\n Date<\/strong>: Mon 28\/11\/2016 09:45<\/p>\n Subject<\/strong>: Purchase Order No. 90373<\/p>\n Attachment<\/strong>: PO90373.zip<\/p>\n Body content<\/strong>:<\/p>\n Please find attached Purchase Order No. 90373.<\/em><\/p>\n PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS ADDRESS.<\/em><\/p>\n If you have any queries in regards to your Purchase Order, please contact your requestor, Reinaldo horrocks on 01922 062460 ext 5580.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n #####################################################################################<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Attention:<\/em><\/p>\n The information contained in this message and or attachments is intended<\/em><\/p>\n only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain<\/em><\/p>\n confidential and\/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission,<\/em><\/p>\n dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon,<\/em><\/p>\n this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient<\/em><\/p>\n is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and<\/em><\/p>\n delete the material from any system and destroy any copies.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n All messages sent to and from South Staffordshire PLC<\/em><\/p>\n may be monitored to ensure compliance with internal policies and to protect<\/em><\/p>\n our business.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n E-mails are not secure and cannot be guaranteed to be error free as they can be<\/em><\/p>\n intercepted, amended, lost or destroyed or contain viruses. Anyone communicating<\/em><\/p>\n with us by e-mail is taken to accept these risks.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n South Staffordshire PLC<\/em><\/p>\n Green Lane, Walsall, WS2 7PD<\/em><\/p>\n Registered in England No. 6228565<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n #####################################################################################<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Screenshot<\/strong>:<\/p>\n These\u00a0malicious attachments normally have a password stealing component, with the aim of stealing your\u00a0bank, PayPal or other financial details along with your\u00a0email or FTP ( web space) log in credentials. Many of them are also designed to specifically steal your Facebook and other social network log in details. A very high proportion are Ransomware versions that encrypt your files and demand money ( about \u00a3350\/$400) to recover the files.<\/p>\n \u00a0 All the alleged senders, amounts, reference numbers, Bank codes, companies, names of employees, employee positions, email addresses\u00a0and phone numbers mentioned in the emails are all random. Some of these companies will exist and some won\u2019t.\u00a0Don\u2019t try to respond by phone or email, all you will do is end up with an innocent person or company who have had their details spoofed and picked at random from a long list that the bad guys have previously found. <\/span><\/p>\n The bad guys choose companies, Government departments and organisations \u00a0with subjects that are designed to entice you or alarm you into blindly opening the attachment or clicking the link in the email to see what is happening. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Please read our\u00a0How to protect yourselves page<\/a>\u00a0<\/u>for simple, sensible advice on how to avoid being infected by this sort of socially engineered malware.<\/p>\n Previous campaigns over the last few weeks have delivered\u00a0numerous\u00a0different download sites and malware versions. There are\u00a0frequently 5 or 6 and even up to 150 \u00a0download locations on some days,\u00a0sometimes\u00a0delivering\u00a0the exactly same malware from all locations and sometimes slightly different\u00a0malware versions. Dridex \/Locky\u00a0does update at frequent intervals during the day, sometimes as quickly as every hour, so you might get a different version of these nasty Ransomware or\u00a0\u00a0Banking password stealer Trojans.<\/p>\n This is another one of the\u00a0 files that unless you have \u201cshow known file extensions enabled<\/u><\/a>\u201c,\u00a0can easily be mistaken for \u00a0a genuine \u00a0DOC \/ PDF \/ JPG\u00a0or other common file instead of the .EXE \/ .JS\u00a0file it really is, so making it much more likely for you to accidentally open it and be infected.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Be very careful with email attachments. All of these emails use\u00a0Social engineering<\/a>\u00a0<\/u>tricks to persuade you to open the attachments that come with the email. Whether it is a message saying \u201clook at this picture of me I took last night\u201d and it appears to come from a friend or is more targeted at somebody who regularly is likely to receive PDF attachments or Word .doc attachments or any other common file that you use every day.<\/p>\n The basic rule is\u00a0NEVER\u00a0<\/strong>open any attachment to an email, unless you are expecting it. Now that is very easy to say but quite hard to put into practice, because we all get emails with files attached to them. Our friends and family \u00a0love to send us pictures of them doing silly things, or even cute pictures of the\u00a0children or pets.<\/p>\n